35 ms·

Tesla conducting more layoffs, including entire Supercharger team

300 points by TheAlchemist 2y ago

hankchinaski 2y ago
The real question is why people keep working for these obnoxious companies/leaders, I rather watch grass grow than work for Tesla and that egomaniac of Elon smuck
Topfi 2y ago
I've always considered the Supercharger network as their most valuable asset, besides arguably their mindshare, so I cannot see how losing the entire team could be a rational decision in the long term. Also, after work on the Model 2 was canceled and reopened, I can't see Daniel Ho and his teams departure as a long-considered choice, to put it mildly. Feels all like emotionally driven decisions...
- projectileboy 2y ago
  Agree 100%. The change in Musk’s public persona combined with his more recent business decisions are alarming. And you may say that his public persona shouldn’t matter, but when he willfully alienates a large portion of his traditional customer base, one wonders what he is even thinking.
  - pfannkuchen 2y ago
    This might ironically be the downside of being less money driven and more principle driven. I think he legitimately thinks “the woke mind virus” is a bigger short term threat to (western) civilization than failing to transition to sustainable energy (Tesla) or failing to become a multi planetary species (SpaceX). If he was primarily financially driven I think he would have kept quiet and just focused on the existing companies, like most people probably would even if they privately held similarly controversial opinions. I’m not saying he is correct by the way, just that it seems like he thinks that and it basically explains his behavior.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      The thing is, he’s never been paid to stay quiet and focus on the money. Musk’s value add is as the celebrity CEO; the Jobsian ideal taken to its natural conclusion. He’s supposed to be this forward-looking visionary and having him at the helm of your company is supposed to make it forward-looking by proxy. This is all well and good until the celebrity CEO fries his brain with Special K and builds a bubble of yes-men around him. Then it becomes a massive liability.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      A lot of it’s explained by drugs, incredible impulsivity, some magical thinking, and remarkably thin skin, plus (I think the rest are in plain evidence—this gets speculative) maybe some discontent over his personal life and especially his kids.
    - sumeruchat 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - spacemadness 2y ago
    Tell that to the share holders who keep rewarding him even on a huge earnings miss.
    - nostrademons 2y ago
      TSLA down > 50% from the peak. The stock went up on earnings miss because things were not as bad as shareholders were expecting, but the shareholders are expecting things to be pretty bad.
      - yowzadave 2y ago
        But I think the point people have made (correctly!) is that TSLA's price is detached from any normal way we have for pricing a car company. Their market cap is 160% that of Toyota, despite selling 16% as many cars. How are they ever going to justify their current valuation? Kicking Elon out to get rational CEO behavior could result in a rational market assessment of Tesla's value, which would be bad from the shareholders' perspective!
        lesuorac 2y ago
        Toyota issues bonds (ex. [1]) so their valuation should be less than the multiple on cars sold as tesla. [1]: https://cbonds.com/bonds/1504323/ https://cbonds.com/bonds/1504323/
    - gomox 2y ago
      The only thing separating Tesla from a realistic multiple is Musk. For shareholders it's rational to want to keep him around. Otherwise they would have to face a much worse reversion to the mean.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Hmmm... Usually the fable of the Emperor's New Clothes implies the people around him went along with the fiction because they feared personal retribution from the Emperor... But what if nobles did it to prevent a drop in the "stock" of the empire itself?
    - 2y ago
  - citizen_friend 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      To me, this just doesn't seem factual. I became an admirer of his in the 2010s. I don't believe he was spending so much time back then picking petty fights and saying unhinged or just extremely politically polarized things on social media in that time period, which the media was just covering differently than they are now. I think his public behavior has changed notably, not just the reporting on him.
      - Avshalom 2y ago
        On one hand, he has definitely become more unhinged as time has gone on. Some combination of stress, drug abuse and social-media-audience-capture. At the same time tho: remember https://www.tesla.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive https://www.tesla.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive if the media reaction to that had been "tesla ceo pulls private driving detail in attempt to discredit journalist" it would have formed a much more obvious through-line with the Top Gear "tesla ceo pulls battery telemetry to sue comedy show" from years prior and "tesla employees can watch you have sex in your car" from years later. See Also the ongoing excuse of "autopilot was not engaged when the crash happened" or Tesla's insurance charging more if you drive at night. https://electrek.co/2023/09/15/musk-wanted-to-use-tesla-cameras-to-spy-on-drivers-and-win-autopilot-lawsuits/ https://electrek.co/2023/09/15/musk-wanted-to-use-tesla-came... Things add up to: Elon Musk does not believe in any sort of right to your privacy. Like in general while his public persona has gotten less reasonable over the years there's a lot of things that could/should be reported as "patterns of behavior" that, in the early days got reported as if they happened in a vacuum which let it seem reasonable at the time.
        sanderjd 2y ago
        I think two things are true, both that his behavior has really changed significantly, and that the media has been increasingly less friendly to his eccentric behavior. But I think it's the first of those true things that has impacted peoples' perceptions of him far more than the second.
  - psunavy03 2y ago
    I've honestly wondered whether or not he's going to end up as this generation's Howard Hughes. Makes fortune in other industry, parlays that into becoming a manufacturing/aerospace titan, slowly goes insane. He's 2 or 2.5 for 3 depending on how you count.
    - LightBug1 2y ago
      Started thinking that years ago ... and have always made the link, in my mind, between the Starship and the Spruce Goose ...
      - psunavy03 2y ago
        To be fair, Starship has gotten further than the Spruce Goose ever did.
        LightBug1 2y ago
        I kind of agree - but relatively speaking they're at about the same place right now.
      - two_handfuls 2y ago
        Maybe robotaxis will be the Spruce Goose.
      - _Tev 2y ago
        Starlink (v2 sats in particular) alone justifies Starship. Include HLS and potential Mars stuff and the comparison does not make sense. Don't listen to people who hate on SpaceX because of Musk. If you want to hate on him pick any AI-related thing, much easier target.
- sanderjd 2y ago
  Yeah, of the full possibility space of mystifying decisions, I think this one might be the global maximum... It's such a "selling shovels to the miners" business line where they are (were?) positioned really well in. Maybe this isn't actually what's going on, but from an outsider's perspective, it really feels to me like watching a person's nervous breakdown play out, but at the scale of giant publicly traded companies.
- tzs 2y ago
  What does the Supercharger team actually do? To build and run a charger network you need people for at least these things: • To design the stations (including the charging equipment (hardware and software), landscaping, buildings) • To manufacture the charging equipment • To decide at a high level were to put stations, and at a lower level to find specific sites, buy or lease those sites, and go through whatever legal process is needed to be allowed to build there. • To deal with electric utilities to get power to the site. • To do the actual building at the site, including preparing the land, maybe paving, installing the chargers, hooking up to the incoming power, putting up signage, etc • To maintain it. It will need regular cleaning and trash pickup. Someone should be checking regularly for problems that won't be found by whatever remote monitoring and diagnostics they have. When a problem is found, manually or by there remote monitoring, someone has to go fix it. • To provide customer support. If you do all of them in house you need a large team. But a lot of them are reasonably done by hiring another company to do them in which case you might not need a large in house team. I'd guess that they do the first (design), part of the second (assemble the charging equipment from components they have custom built by other companies), the high level location planning. I'd guess that the lower level part of site placement is done by local firms familiar with the area that Tesla hires, that dealing with the electric company and the actual building is done by a local general contractor and whatever subcontractors that general contractor uses. I'd guess that the cleaning and on site checking for problems is handled by a local maintenance company. Fixing problems would either be a local company or someone Tesla sends depending on what it is that needs fixing. Customer support would likely be Tesla. If Tesla considers that their existing Supercharger station designs are good enough to continue using for a long time for new stations, then they might really only need to keep in house the high level decision of were to put them, charger repairs, customer support, and hiring the local companies that do the field work.
  - cowmix 2y ago
    500+ people to even do the HIGH level bits of running a SC network isn't a lot. Everyone (even the most strident Tesla haters) agrees that SC is the one thing Tesla does the best, hands down. I own a model Y and tried to use only non-Tesla charging on a long distance trip a few months ago, it was a disaster. Telsa's charging network is a win on EVERY front: 1. Locations 2. Quantity of locations 3. Quality (high charging rates) 4. User experience / design of hardware - software 5. Realtime reporting and navigation 6. Uptime of network The SC network is why a lot people consider Tesla who otherwise it would be a big fat no.
- wuj 2y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, many companies do the product engineering in house and outsource the manufacturing/maintenance to contractors. Tesla's supercharger network is mature enough that it won't see much innovation moving forward, and that might've motivated them to remove the entire team.
- m5l 2y ago
  Could a plausible explanation be that with the spread of NACS, the supercharger network matters more to the overall industry and so Tesla can get away without footing the costs of managing it? Even if that makes some sense, it seems early to make that judgment call.
  - ianburrell 2y ago
    In that case, they should have spun it out. I think Supercharger would be good if boring business by itself. That would also get rid of the conflict of having car company own biggest charging network.
- demondemidi 2y ago
  > Feels all like emotionally driven decisions... Yep. This is why a CEO actually matters. Musk is a great example of what happens when a CEO is bad. He's turning into John Scully for those of you that remember. Unfortunately he's no Steve Jobs, but the board definitely needs to find a CEO, stat or that ship's going down.
Havoc 2y ago
Must be bad layoff decision week. First googles python team now Tesla supercharger team
vardump 2y ago
Perhaps we don't know the whole picture. I doubt Tesla is going to abandon Superchargers anytime soon.
- thejazzman 2y ago
  Who exactly is going to pickup the work?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - citizen_friend 2y ago
    Oh so you do know the full picture and organizational structure?
  - steelframe 2y ago
    Electrify America! (Sorry, I'll show myself out the door.)
  - marcusverus 2y ago
    Good question. The answer ain't 'nobody', is it? It's almost as though, perhaps, we don't know the whole picture.
peutetre 2y ago
> Musk said, in his typical bluster, that he wants Tesla to be “absolutely hard core” about headcount reduction, saying that executives whose subordinates “don’t obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” I'm not sure Musk passes that test.
- GolfPopper 2y ago
  He's not talking about executives, he's talking about "subordinates".
mint2 2y ago
“ continued layoffs have even worse optics, given Tesla’s move to ask shareholders for a $55 billion payout for its CEO just days after firing 14,000 people. That $55 billion could pay for 40 years worth of six-figure salaries for those employees.” Musk is detached from reality. He seems to think firing most of X is a resounding success and Tesla, a car manufacturing company, needs to do the same. Also that cost cutting and performance reviews only apply to others, just like in Twitter and elsewhere free speech means his speech not critics. I really hope he doesn’t wreck spaceX too.
- enraged_camel 2y ago
  >> I really hope he doesn’t wreck spaceX too. I think SpaceX is one disaster away from suffering the same fate, to be honest. Like, if the next Starship doesn't make it as far as the previous attempt (for example, if it blows up on the way up), Elon is going to come in like a wrecking ball. The pressure on the SpaceX team must be immense.
  - thejazzman 2y ago
    Once he rage fires Shotwell.. and given how insane that would be only validates its likelihood at this point
  - treme 2y ago
    you seem naive. SpaceX has made it to MI complex status, and US gov will easily bail them out should worst come.
    - funac 2y ago
      > SpaceX has made it to MI complex status, and US gov will easily bail them out should worst come. immaterial: "the worst" here is elon destroying the engineering culture & with it their ability to keep improving on what they've done so far. not going bankrupt (by way of a bailout or otherwise) is a necessary condition for avoiding the worst (boeing syndrome), but it's not sufficient fedgov can pour money into the military industrial complex, but it can't do a whole lot more, and that only goes so far
cs702 2y ago
WTF? This is utterly bananas. I don't get it. The long-term cost of treating longtime, loyal, talented employees like Rebecca Tinucci as... disposable could be very high. It could even threaten the company's survival. But... I'm going to give Musk the benefit of the doubt, because he has proven me -- and lots of people who are way smarter than me -- wrong, again and again, over the past two decades. He has a long track record of making bets that look crazy-stupid in the moment but turn out to be crazy-brilliant in hindsight. The jury is out.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  > He has a long track record of making bets that look crazy-stupid in the moment but turn out to be crazy-brilliant in hindsight. Like Cybertruck? Tesla Semi? Full self driving in 2017? Robotic snake to automatically plug into your car and charge it? Dojo? Hyperloop? Solar roofs? Battery Swap? Dogecoin? Tesla Roadster? Twitter?
  - thejazzman 2y ago
    That snake was bad ass I heard Elon designed and built it himself in his garage They didn't commercialize it because no one else was capable of making one and it was too much work for one person to mass produce
    - potatochup 2y ago
      Definitely not true. Source: I worked at Tesla at the time of the Snake robot.
      - dragontamer 2y ago
        The above post looks like carefully constructed satire, mostly there to make fun of people who hero-worship Elon Musk into thinking that Elon Musk personally handled all tasks at Tesla like Tony Stark / Ironman.
        2y ago
54643dd 2y ago
[flagged]
- mplewis 2y ago
  You made a burner account and all you could come up with was this comment?
techdmn 2y ago
Hmm, time for the over under. Which happens first: Musk is replaced as CEO, or he drives Tesla into the ground? And in the latter case, how long do we think it will take?
- sumeno 2y ago
  That's not how an over-under works
  - techdmn 2y ago
    Fair. How about: "How long Musk continues to be CEO of Tesla, whether because he is replaced or because Tesla goes out of business."
justin66 2y ago
I guess the way to keep your engineering job at Tesla is to perpetually work on something that isn't finished, like self driving.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  ♫ "Next year, oh next year, you'll love it, just next year, it's only some months a-wayyyyy." ♫ (To the tune of "Tomorrow" from Annie.)
ra7 2y ago
In my opinion, this is all a massive gamble by Musk to pivot Tesla to an AI-first tech company. Except that Tesla cannot really do AI well and don't have the resources or talent the likes of Google, Meta, OpenAI, etc. does to do novel research and push AI forward. And he has to make this gamble because Tesla's fundamentals as a car company is going down the drain and its entire valuation hinges on the fact that they are not just a car company. That's why he's constantly announcing new products (robotaxis, humanoid robots) that are nowhere close to materializing, making visits to China to ink HD maps deal with Baidu for FSD and claiming to spend $10B on AI infrastructure this year. He seems to be in forever stock pump mode, so much so that Tesla's best product till date might just be its stock.
- renegade-otter 2y ago
  Except that AI has not shown itself to be useful, at least not considering the staggering costs, anyway. Tens of billions of dollars to... fix people's grammar and generate tons of SEO spam? What PROBLEM are they solving here?
  - bunderbunder 2y ago
    I think the parent poster stated it pretty clearly: the problem they're trying to solve is how to keep the stock price floating at a multiple of what the business's actual fundamentals suggest it should be. The problem is, while that worked well for a good 10 or 20 years, it seems that people are now starting to catch on to the scheme. But I'm not sure that means that you can just stop doing it. As someone elsewhere in the thread pointed out, dragging things out as much as you can is probably preferable to a sudden and brutal value correction for just about everyone with actual skin in the game.
  - 93po 2y ago
    FSD is currently using neural-network style AI, and it's frankly amazing to use and watch and is massively useful.
    - stetrain 2y ago
ethagknight 2y ago
Tesla is in a bit of a bind in that the model y is difficult to improve (beyond the upcoming highland refresh). Fundamentally, it does its job so well that all it needs are minor tweaks. Supercharging network is essentially complete from a fundamentals perspective, you can nearly go anywhere with a EV with a bit of planning. The market can fill in the gaps. The roadster and semi situations are headscratchers, but I guess Tesla doesn’t want to hassle with a “sports car” with the same performance as its biggest sedan. I don’t think the Semi really works purely from an energy density perspective. Diesel-electric hybrids make far more sense for big rigs for current battery tech. The Tesla semi is sorta stuck. The layoffs make sense in that light. They have implemented the step change in Ev Manufacturing, built the machine to build the machines, are very close with FSD, built the charging network… working to avoid innovators dilemma, perhaps? Treating employees poorly is no good.
- xvector 2y ago
  Advice for future Musk employees: Do a somewhat shitty job, otherwise you'll get fired as soon as you build a stable product.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    same could be said for home builders and heart surgeons. Do a shitty job or you wont be needed anymore.
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      Home-building companies and hospitals do need home builders and heart surgeons. Are they all doing shitty jobs?
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        And Tesla still has employees, but fewer than before. I was trying to highlight the idea that most workers dont have to rely on having a shitty work product to ensure their job security. This itself is a reaction to the idea that a job offer is a life long commitment akin to marriage. In a healthy labor market, employers would want to retain talent because it is profitable to do so. I don't employers retaining unproductive employees is a desirable state.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
xvector 2y ago
Musk's companies do great stuff but I wouldn't be caught dead working under him. An unwise decision in so many ways.
Tiktaalik 2y ago
Seems troubling for the recent vendors Ford and Rivian that just signed on to be users of the Supercharger network if the thing now has high odds of (figuratively) rusting away without support. I wonder if Tesla is in any breaches of contracts that they may have signed with these companies, and how much Ford/Rivian paid for acccess.
- 4b11b4 2y ago
  I doubt it's going to rust away, they just don't need a large team anymore.
wnevets 2y ago
Why would an AI company need employees to build cars and its charging network? /s
tristanb 2y ago
I have a decent amount of Tesla shares, that I purchased around 2017. All I want is a shareholder vote to get rid of Elon. His time has passed.
- cbeach 2y ago
  So, a very smart CEO works for six years to turn a minor automotive startup into the world’s most valuable car company, enriching you while you sat on shares in the company. And despite this, you think he deserves his compensation (in the form of shares in the company) to be cancelled? Even though it was contractually promised, and agreed by shareholders? Bear in mind that the package is only worth a large amount because Tesla has grown so hugely under Musk’s leadership. I’m interested to know how many other HNers also hold this belief, or think this is a reasonable way to treat entrepreneurs in America?
  - JojoFatsani 2y ago
    Not OP but as a very minor shareholder.. I think it’s reasonable not to allow a single employee to be compensated (55b$) more than all the EBITDA the company has ever made. I think it’s reasonable to question the decision making demonstrated by firing the most successful team at the company and put the major competitive advantage at risk. I think it’s reasonable to question the constant monkeying with product and design (Cybertruck, removal of loved features like LIDAR or physical wiper blade controls). I think it’s reasonable to question how the CEO has lost first mover advantage so badly by failing to improve products and introduce new models as the legacy competition and foreign companies quickly have caught up. I think it’s reasonable to want an engaged, full-time CEO who is not distracted by executive responsibilities at several other ventures, half of which are actively failing as well.
    - cbeach 2y ago
      When the deal was agreed, it wasn't worth anything close to $55bn. It's only worth that now due to the incredible rise in value of the stock under Musk. A deal is a deal. As a £six-figure shareholder I am voting for Musk to be paid what he is owed (in the June 13th meeting). And voting for Tesla to incorporate in a state where judges don't make arbitrary decisions on executive pay We don't know the full details of the Supercharger team's "firing" yet, so let's not speculate. Reuters speculated when they reported about the cancellation of the affordable Model 2, and they got that reporting horribly wrong (damaging the stock price with their error). As for Superchargers being a major competitive advantage, that's no longer the case, as the network is open to cars from other brands. Tesla hasn't lost its first mover advantage. Name another American or European carmaker that sells as many EVs as Tesla. BYD briefly caught up in terms of raw sales figures, but that trend quickly reversed when China's economic woes weighed on the company. As for "failing to improve products," the Model S has been improved in so many meaningful ways, it's practically a new car. The performance (0-60 in 1.99s) is absolutely mind-bending, and Tesla's innovations such as the carbon-wrapped motor are responsible for this. > I think it’s reasonable to want an engaged, full-time CEO who is not distracted by executive responsibilities at several other ventures, half of which are actively failing as well. Which ones are failing? SpaceX is untouchable. Neuralink successfully implanted a brain/computer interface in a paraplegic man. X.com delivers features at a greater rate than Twitter 1.0, at lower operational cost, and -more importantly- it is defending free speech. xAI just secured $6bn in funding, with its value soaring to $18bn. All of which was acheived by a man who is "distracted." And other companies that Musk co-founded (e.g. OpenAI, PayPal), seem to be ticking along nicely also.
rawgabbit 2y ago
Lay off 20% of the work force to juice the financials and then dump the stock?
babypuncher 2y ago
An old boss of mine tried to get me to come work for him at Tesla. This was early 2022. I told him this Musk fellow doesn't inspire much confidence in me with his increasingly bizarre antics. Seems like I dodged a bullet.
mandeepj 2y ago
Interesting read below! Seems plausible, not sure how true the story though. https://x.com/fomahun/status/1785333618157527081?s=46&t=LAqP7LYAXb_VWBxxkMgMyQ https://x.com/fomahun/status/1785333618157527081?s=46&t=LAqP...
- resolutebat 2y ago
  This is the stupidest theory ever. Supercharger expansion is not slow because of Tesla or any technical reason under their control, but because Supercharger stations require a) massive amounts of electricity and b) local government planning approvals, and the 2nd of those in particular only moves at the speed of government. There are sites in Australia that have been tied up for years by petty council politicking.
sp332 2y ago
I don’t know if "fired" means something different in Britain, but the article says they were let go or laid off.
- rjsw 2y ago
  What does it mean in American?
  - sp332 2y ago
    Let go for cause. It has different severance and benefits status.
    - thejohnconway 2y ago
      "Let go" is a horrible euphemism, like the employee wants to go, but is being prevented from doing so. I'm setting you free employee! Enjoy your no job and no money! Reminds me of Bill Lumbergh in office space, "so if you could just go ahead and [thing Peter Gibbons really didn't want to do]".
  - rcstank 2y ago
    Fired means the role will be backfilled, and the employee was let go for performance reasons or whatever else. Laid off means the role won’t be backfilled. It could also mean the role was renamed, and they wanted to let the employee go but it looks better for everyone to say it was a layoff. Let go (at least to me) could mean either.
    - wccrawford 2y ago
      I think Fired means it could be backfilled, but I've seen plenty of instances where the company decided to restructure or do things differently instead of hiring someone else. Just because they were fired for cause doesn't mean the company wants to keep that job around afterwards. That said, it is unusual not to say 'laid off' these days unless the person was fired for cause, but the recently media frenzy around the term might have them saying other things instead.
cmsj 2y ago
This must be one of those 4D chess things I hear about...
- sp332 2y ago
  Now that the charger standard is open, they don’t need to expand the network themselves.
  - peutetre 2y ago
    The charger standard is CCS. It was always open. What's happening in North America is that everyone will use CCS with Tesla's plug on the end. It's CCS type 3. Older Teslas will need a retrofit to be able to talk CCS. Tesla chargers will still support Tesla's now dead protocol.
    - sp332 2y ago
      I think that's a weird way to look at it, but anyway, Tesla doesn't need to expand the network of Tesla-compatible chargers anymore.
      - peutetre 2y ago
        It's the factual way to look at it.
    - quonn 2y ago
      This seems to be wrong, CCS type 3 looks completely different: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_3_connector https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_3_connector
      - peutetre 2y ago
        That type 3 was obsoleted and was never used as part of CCS.
        2y ago
lpapez 2y ago
Masterful gambit sire.
throwaw12 2y ago
Elon is very interesting guy, on one side he complains about birth rate, on the other side impacts people's mind to not have a kid, because they're not safe in their workplace and expects they must dedicate large part of their lives to his companies
- snapcaster 2y ago
  Oh come on, i'm not a fan of elon musk but jeez
  - throwaw12 2y ago
    I am a fan, that's why saying he is interesting. Tell me it's not true?
    - nindalf 2y ago
      It's curious that you remain a fan despite being able to see his hypocrisy. I wonder why you haven't made the logical leap that it isn't worth being a fan of a hypocrite like this.
    - _yb2s 2y ago
      Your comment elevates him to godlike status… you expect him to be managing humanity’s birthrate with his corporate decisions? He’s just running a company here, and by all indications, he’s struggling at it. It would be a violation of his job responsibilities, and get him in trouble with shareholders if he was doing anything other than trying to make the company succeed. Moreover, this is the basic challenge of running a business: if you are you afraid to make hard decisions, the company will collapse and every employee will be out of a job.
    - snapcaster 2y ago
      You really think it's fair to make Elon Musk responsible for the global birthrate and population?
      - deleted 2y ago
feverzsj 2y ago
Tesla supercharger is fully compatible with BYD ev. Coincidence? I think not.
- peutetre 2y ago
  Tesla's chargers have charged all brands in Europe for a long time now. Here's one charging a BMW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ Another BMW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mox4tL3dR8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mox4tL3dR8o Here's one charging a 400 volt Kia: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s Here's one not doing a good job charging an 800 volt Kia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJ2KtzMeh8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJ2KtzMeh8 Tesla does need to do better on 800 volt charging. If Alpitronic, Kempower, ABB, EvBox, and friends can all do it then Tesla can do it too.
- andix 2y ago
  In Europe they are. All new chargers in Europe use the CCS2 standard, and teslas have a CCS2 socket. NACS is not suitable for Europe, because of three phase AC charging (which makes home charging much easier/faster than in the US). I think all of the V3/V4 superchargers are open to all cars, otherwise Tesla wouldn't get government funding for expanding the charging network (at least in the EU, maybe UK changed that after brexit). Interestingly it's still mostly teslas charging there, although superchargers are one of the cheapest options to charge.
moogly 2y ago
Next piece of news I'm expecting at this point is "Tesla stops Model Y production worldwide".
- RaftPeople 2y ago
  Musk: "We want our customers to be hard-core just like we are, so the Model Y will now be a home-assemble model."
  - olyjohn 2y ago
    If you don't get it built using every spare waking hour of your life, Elon calls you up and starts yelling at you.
AbrahamParangi 2y ago
Kind of buried the lead when they wrote that regulators are pushing Tesla to effectively nationalize their charger network and they just coincidentally cut the entire team.
- potatolicious 2y ago
  > "But with regulators in both Europe and the US pushing the firm to open the Supercharger network to owners of other electric vehicles, it will offer less of an advantage in the future." Mandatory interop is not nationalization. Words have specific meanings. As far as I can tell there have been zero calls to nationalize the Supercharger network from anyone.
  - AbrahamParangi 2y ago
    Nationalized in that the benefit is socialized and there is now little to no incentive for Tesla to improve their network as it doesn't advance their market position. I don't see how this is hard to understand.
- tejohnso 2y ago
  > "But with regulators in both Europe and the US pushing the firm to open the Supercharger network to owners of other electric vehicles, it will offer less of an advantage in the future." How hard can this be pushed? Tesla put in all the work, took all the risk, and now they can be forced to share it and give up one of their competitive advantages? Maybe in Europe, but it doesn't seem like a U.S. kind of move, where normally you put in the work and risk, you reap the rewards rather than being forced to hand over what you've earned to the competitors.
  - kgermino 2y ago
    Your parent is either misinformed or misleading. At least in the US (not familiar with Europe) there haven’t even been mentions of nationalization. Beyond that, the “pressure” for interoperability has entirely been tied to federal funding. The feds have money available to build electric charging stations, but the catch is that it has to work with cars from other manufacturers. If you don’t take the money, you can do whatever you want
Dalewyn 2y ago
For those in the thread confused about Fired vs. Laid Off in the US: Being fired means your employer was unsatisfied with employing you, reasons can include insufficient performance, inappropriate conduct, breach of contract, and so on. Being laid off means your employer no longer needs or wants your manhours, with no negativity otherwise implied. Reasons can include corporate restructurings and so on.
- paxys 2y ago
  These definitions are manufactured by HR. Being fired means being fired. What reasons the company had for it are irrelevant. Most employment in the US is at will, so the company doesn't need to provide a reason for the firing. In fact they don't even need to have a reason. Plus most layoffs are also taking performance into account. If every department is tasked with cutting headcount by 10%, they aren't going to pull the numbers out of a hat. The lowest performers will be the ones shown the door.
sgnelson 2y ago
With all those people who have "range anxiety" and thus avoid buying EV's, this is going to do a good job of selling more Teslas...
- alephnerd 2y ago
  I've been in the market searching for a car for sometime, and I was about to go with a Tesla, but this layoff pushed me away from the brand. I don't care about Musk's politics (everyone has skeletons in their closet, so idgaf) but I don't have confidence as a customer anymore now that Tesla has truly become erratic recently. The only reason I even seriously considered a Tesla is the supercharger network. I don't want to have a Daewoo Motors 2.0 on my hands.
  - boringg 2y ago
    I think you probably need to look closer at the their numbers if you are really trying to claim that it is unstable car company. This comment sounds to me like you are looking for a reason to not get a Tesla because you don't like Musk.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Larrikin 2y ago
      It's a valid reason to not give money to someone you dislike. Tesla is not owed his money because they were first movers in the serious EV market, especially as time goes on and more and more options exist.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Sure, as I read the parent post, they were just saying you don't have to dress it up and pretend it is a different reason.
        2y ago
mig39 2y ago
Somebody's gotta pay the twitter loan interest payments.
paxys 2y ago
It's hard to feel optimistic about Tesla these days. Musk is gutting the company while dangling bizarre and wildly unrealistic promises in front of shareholders (releasing Optimus robot, self driving taxis, licensing self driving tech, training AI models on all Tesla cars, launching unnamed cheaper product lines – all by the end of the year). This will get a short term stock price boost and probably get his $56 billion pay package approved, but when then? Who saves Tesla from reality after Musk gets his money and checks out?
- Maxious 2y ago
  > Musk made clear in a call with analysts earlier this month that he is focused on opportunities in artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous robotaxis. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musk-disbands-tesla-ev-charging-team-leaving-customers-dark-2024-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musk-d... Presumably that was before Tesla needed to recall all the cybertrucks for stuck acceleration. AI says blame the floormats
- throw310822 2y ago
  > Optimus robot, self driving taxis, licensing self driving tech, training AI models I think it might be worth saying that: 1) Tesla has already accomplished its stated mission of making EV cars mainstream. This was Musk's goal from the beginning, and (insofar it is true that he's interested in working on "world changing problems" and not in making money per se) the mission of Tesla as a driver of transformation is accomplished. 2) Musk might have decided since a while that Tesla has a desperate need to pivot, because being a mass producer of a mature technology in the West is not sustainable in the long run.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    > Musk might have decided since a while that Tesla has a desperate need to pivot, because being a mass producer of a mature technology in the West is not sustainable in the long run. I'm sorry just... what? Being in a position to sell products to a robust and demanding market is a bad thing? What in the Business Major brain are we saying here? And frankly calling their products "mature technology" feels like a stretch given Tesla is regularly stubbing it's toe on pretty benign design problems that numerous other automakers have had nailed down for decades.
rpmisms 2y ago
Theory floating around Tesla spaces right now is that they weren't executing well enough or fast enough, so Elon is going to start a new team from scratch. Given the remarkably slow rollout compared to most things Tesla does, wouldn't shock me at all. Elon generally does not fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy.
- andix 2y ago
  Especially in Europe there are many locations that don't make a lot of progress. Some locations are in construction for over a year now, others just got announced and never started. It's mostly a problem with getting permits and connections to the power grid, but still it's not a great performance. I don't know if they could do better.
- paxys 2y ago
  This phenomenon is well known in tech. "The product doesn't work as well as expected. We can painstakingly investigate all the different issues one by one, root cause them, and put in the effort to fix them. Or we could just throw out the whole codebase and start again from scratch. That's sure to be more effective right?" Spoiler – it isn't. Musk just threw out a thousand+ years of combined experience in the area, and the new team is going to come in and repeat years' worth of the same mistakes in order to realize why things are the way they are.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    People aren't code. Sometimes teams get a culture that you want to change and it's generally extremely difficult, if not impossible to change team cultures incrementally because a) they always hire people that have the same culture as them, b) they're used to the existing culture, and c) people hate being told they have to change. So I think it may not be as crazy as you make out. On the other hand were they really underperforming? Isn't Tesla's charging network still world leading?
    - paxys 2y ago
      If there is a bad culture then work to fix it. If there are underperforming employees then root them out. Like you said, it's not like 500 totally incompetent people built out the largest and most powerful EV charging infrastructure on the planet in a matter of a decade.
boringg 2y ago
Anyone have any information about the actual individual asset valuations for a Tesla Supercharger station? I have to imagine that without tax benefits accruing to Tesla these investments don't pencil out on financials but are a necessary investment for people to feel comfortable about buying an EV. So probably individual losses on their books that they no longer need to underwrite because the competition can start investing and operating them which expands the network for users.
pocketsand 2y ago
I understand the competitive advantage has changed with the NACS deal, but the last major Tesla brand advantage I as a lay-observer saw was their clearly superior charging network and connector. People seemed to unanimously agree their connector was better, that opening it up was good, and that Tesla charges are more reliable and more available than competitors'. Why you'd immolate that brand equity is beyond me.
- foobarian 2y ago
  My guess is, it was too expensive. That was a huge team with a huge capex outlay and for what? They still had to slash prices to keep moving inventory.
- kjksf 2y ago
  They are not destroying superchargers. They are still there and even if they don't add a single new one for the next 5 years, it'll still be the largest and the best supercharging network in US. No need to be so melodramatic about it. If you ask me it's a temporary cost cutting. When interest rates come down, car sales pick up and revenues pick up, they'll re-start the build out of the network.
  - pocketsand 2y ago
    I did not say they're destroying the chargers. You are nevertheless underselling the potential implications IMO. These chargers are finicky. People's primary complaint with Electrify America is how hit or miss they are in actually working. People have the same complaint about Tesla, but to a lesser degree. That combined with Tesla's wider presence have made people correctly laud the quality of the market. Expansion aside, these chargers will need to be maintained, and sacking the entire division doesn't leave me hopeful they will be. Moreover, EVs are going to just keep growing in number. Every brand now has a pretty solid EV for sale. Keeping the same number of chargers isn't helping anyone. It's their right, but my main point is that this just further convinces me Tesla isn't serious about keeping up with EVs. Pumping money into a useless truck, chasing a dozen other fanciful projects, abandoning their world class charger network. The future is -- every other manufacturer -- it would seem.
linsomniac 2y ago
Musk has clarified: "Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785
- greedo 2y ago
  Why anyone gives credence to what Musk says is beyond me. The hype this guy has spewed the last decade is beyond credulous.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - linsomniac 2y ago
    Cruel, but fair. But, it is a part of the story...
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leesec 2y ago
Elon regularly fires teams that don't perform. He fired the management of Starlink in 2019 and the product was still a mass success. So much hatred and negativity for one of the most truly innovative companies of our time.
- smith7018 2y ago
  The Supercharger program is arguably Tesla's most valuable asset, though. Arguing that they're "under preforming" and therefore deserved a mass firing is unbelievably shortsighted. Without the Supercharger network (that was on its way to becoming a US monopoly), there isn't much differentiation between Tesla and other EVs beyond brand recognition and largely controversial design decisions.
  - leesec 2y ago
    It's still an asset, and it's still becoming a monopoly. Nothing has really changed except the team
  - nightshadetrie 2y ago
    He'll most likely re-hire the core engineers (maybe 1 per team) at higher salaries to maintain context. That's what he did at X
oxqbldpxo 2y ago
2018: My next car is a Tesla. 2024: There is no way I'd buy a Tesla. Cybertrucks are the 2024 version of "The Emperor's New Clothes."
- Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
  Me in 2016: Elon Musk is real life Tony Stark! :-D 2019: Buys a Model 3 Performance I love this car, though I wish Elon Musk would stop over-promising on FSD. I hope one day to get a Roadster 2.0! 2021: Elon is becoming a bit of a nut job, but his large presence in the news is good for Tesla sales. 2024: The absolute best thing Tesla could possibly do for the survival of the brand is to get rid of Elon Musk. His hard right-wing shift has destroyed left-wing environmentalist desires to get a Tesla, and if Tesla dies, the entire market takes it as a signal that EVs are not viable in the market. His claims on FSD "coming soon" are no longer forgivable and are just outright lies. No longer interested in the Roadster 2.0, hoping someone else can make an EV convertible that'll do 0-60 in under 2.2s and have a $200K or less price tag.
Germanion 2y ago
Elon wasting too much time on Twitter. Prev I thought good leaders don't matter (and musk is still bat shit crazy) but plenty of times now I took care of stuff (a team, a product) and made it good. But keeping it good needs still attention or someone taking over. That Elon was/is hands on was.critical. With him spending time on Twitter too, stupidest thing he ever did.
ldbooth 2y ago
It seems they looked at the market, saw their 6% return on SC's and saw a lot of competition that would be drive down that low margin and be installing their NACS ports going forward anyway. If they can back away to to let 3rd party developers/funds build the low margin stuff, it could be a wise use of capital. However, this is the ChargePoint model having 3rd parties buy/build/own/operate the stations and although Tesla's DC/AC charger builds are better, they will be confronted with the same issues ChargePoint has where station uptime is much lower due under 3rd party ownership because Tesla does not directly own and monitor the stations and it's up to the owner to maintain. The owners are more lax and the ports experience more downtime, disrepair. Literally the opposite of increasing SC uptime that was Elon's justification tweet on this team layoff. Maybe they can find a solution to the problem (only selling to large orgs/projects like they do with Megapack) but the likely outcome is the network will grow slower with outside capital but the quality/uptime is lower than before. And non Tesla SC stations/networks will be integrated into the Tesla dash like everyone other OEM does.
pipes 2y ago
Part of the reason seems to EU saying that Tesla must let it's competitors use it's networks. Probably didn't occur to them that this might disincentivise Tesla from investing in it.
quantified 2y ago
> And while the last layoffs were distasteful enough, continued layoffs have even worse optics, given Tesla’s move to ask shareholders for a $55 billion payout for its CEO just days after firing 14,000 people. That $55 billion could pay for 40 years worth of six-figure salaries for those employees. Ok, I'm interested in the rebuttals from the "Elon knows better than you, as measured by his net worth" perspective. It might be really clever business, or it might be a spasm. Is this just an HR maneuver to weed out the less-than-fully-committed?
HlessClaudesman 2y ago
How much of Tesla's downfall can be attributed to Elon's decision to build a clusterfuck clown truck?
jdlyga 2y ago
Superchargers are the only good thing that Tesla has going. What a shame.
pellucide 2y ago
Everyone on HN were predicting death of X.com under similar layoff news. But it is still ticking. Seriously, whats different this time?
- constantcrying 2y ago
  Keeping a website afloat is far less capital intensive than running a car maker. If you are building cars, you have to have a continuous massive amount of investment into development. For running a social media website you just need competent staff and cover hardware costs. You can free-float X to a certain extent, just make sure neither users nor advertisers run away. If you are building cars and a model completely falls flat you are easily down billions of dollars.
- smith7018 2y ago
  I use twitter daily and the site is a shell of its former self. It's slow, prone to bugs, filled with bots, the amount of real users has cratered, user reports go nowhere, there's no support team, the ads are now bot accounts posting crap like "Today is a good day, be sure to make advantageous", there are no new features besides previously in-flight projects pre-Musk, they've actually removed a lot of features (like Circles, block lists, etc), and much more. He took an otherwise functioning social media service and forced it into maintenance mode. He also fired all of the people that keep the user base alive so now it's flooded with bots (which he presumably likes so he can boast about engagement being up). So yes it's still around but it's dying and the skeleton crew he has left can't do anything. In other words, he destroyed it.
- pylua 2y ago
  It will be interesting to see this play out as a public company as opposed to a private one.
Nevermark 2y ago
Elon Musk is woven into Tesla's brand. That strikes me as an opportunity that has become under leveraged. I conjecture that technology-giant Musk firing political-opinionator Musk would be a winning brand management pivot for all his concerns, not just Tesla. Investors might also appreciate the reduction in Musk's attention burn rate. If he announced it like that, in all good humor, and followed through, I would expect significant share price bumps. (I have belatedly become less of an advocate for Tesla, since Musk entered the arena for loud mouth battles over zero/negative-sum ideas. I also attribute part of my decision to pass on Cybertruck to that effect. Divisiveness does nothing for a high-visibility statement product for which "cool" and "I like Elon Musk" are inextricable selling points.)

300 points by TheAlchemist 2y ago

The real question is why people keep working for these obnoxious companies/leaders, I rather watch grass grow than work for Tesla and that egomaniac of Elon smuck

Topfi 2y ago

I've always considered the Supercharger network as their most valuable asset, besides arguably their mindshare, so I cannot see how losing the entire team could be a rational decision in the long term. Also, after work on the Model 2 was canceled and reopened, I can't see Daniel Ho and his teams departure as a long-considered choice, to put it mildly. Feels all like emotionally driven decisions...

projectileboy 2y ago
Agree 100%. The change in Musk’s public persona combined with his more recent business decisions are alarming. And you may say that his public persona shouldn’t matter, but when he willfully alienates a large portion of his traditional customer base, one wonders what he is even thinking.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  This might ironically be the downside of being less money driven and more principle driven. I think he legitimately thinks “the woke mind virus” is a bigger short term threat to (western) civilization than failing to transition to sustainable energy (Tesla) or failing to become a multi planetary species (SpaceX). If he was primarily financially driven I think he would have kept quiet and just focused on the existing companies, like most people probably would even if they privately held similarly controversial opinions. I’m not saying he is correct by the way, just that it seems like he thinks that and it basically explains his behavior.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    The thing is, he’s never been paid to stay quiet and focus on the money. Musk’s value add is as the celebrity CEO; the Jobsian ideal taken to its natural conclusion. He’s supposed to be this forward-looking visionary and having him at the helm of your company is supposed to make it forward-looking by proxy. This is all well and good until the celebrity CEO fries his brain with Special K and builds a bubble of yes-men around him. Then it becomes a massive liability.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    A lot of it’s explained by drugs, incredible impulsivity, some magical thinking, and remarkably thin skin, plus (I think the rest are in plain evidence—this gets speculative) maybe some discontent over his personal life and especially his kids.
  - sumeruchat 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - deleted 2y ago
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- spacemadness 2y ago
  Tell that to the share holders who keep rewarding him even on a huge earnings miss.
  - nostrademons 2y ago
    TSLA down > 50% from the peak. The stock went up on earnings miss because things were not as bad as shareholders were expecting, but the shareholders are expecting things to be pretty bad.
    - yowzadave 2y ago
      But I think the point people have made (correctly!) is that TSLA's price is detached from any normal way we have for pricing a car company. Their market cap is 160% that of Toyota, despite selling 16% as many cars. How are they ever going to justify their current valuation? Kicking Elon out to get rational CEO behavior could result in a rational market assessment of Tesla's value, which would be bad from the shareholders' perspective!
      - lesuorac 2y ago
        Toyota issues bonds (ex. [1]) so their valuation should be less than the multiple on cars sold as tesla. [1]: https://cbonds.com/bonds/1504323/ https://cbonds.com/bonds/1504323/
  - gomox 2y ago
    The only thing separating Tesla from a realistic multiple is Musk. For shareholders it's rational to want to keep him around. Otherwise they would have to face a much worse reversion to the mean.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Hmmm... Usually the fable of the Emperor's New Clothes implies the people around him went along with the fiction because they feared personal retribution from the Emperor... But what if nobles did it to prevent a drop in the "stock" of the empire itself?
  - 2y ago
- citizen_friend 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    To me, this just doesn't seem factual. I became an admirer of his in the 2010s. I don't believe he was spending so much time back then picking petty fights and saying unhinged or just extremely politically polarized things on social media in that time period, which the media was just covering differently than they are now. I think his public behavior has changed notably, not just the reporting on him.
    - Avshalom 2y ago
      On one hand, he has definitely become more unhinged as time has gone on. Some combination of stress, drug abuse and social-media-audience-capture. At the same time tho: remember https://www.tesla.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive https://www.tesla.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive if the media reaction to that had been "tesla ceo pulls private driving detail in attempt to discredit journalist" it would have formed a much more obvious through-line with the Top Gear "tesla ceo pulls battery telemetry to sue comedy show" from years prior and "tesla employees can watch you have sex in your car" from years later. See Also the ongoing excuse of "autopilot was not engaged when the crash happened" or Tesla's insurance charging more if you drive at night. https://electrek.co/2023/09/15/musk-wanted-to-use-tesla-cameras-to-spy-on-drivers-and-win-autopilot-lawsuits/ https://electrek.co/2023/09/15/musk-wanted-to-use-tesla-came... Things add up to: Elon Musk does not believe in any sort of right to your privacy. Like in general while his public persona has gotten less reasonable over the years there's a lot of things that could/should be reported as "patterns of behavior" that, in the early days got reported as if they happened in a vacuum which let it seem reasonable at the time.
      - sanderjd 2y ago
        I think two things are true, both that his behavior has really changed significantly, and that the media has been increasingly less friendly to his eccentric behavior. But I think it's the first of those true things that has impacted peoples' perceptions of him far more than the second.
- psunavy03 2y ago
  I've honestly wondered whether or not he's going to end up as this generation's Howard Hughes. Makes fortune in other industry, parlays that into becoming a manufacturing/aerospace titan, slowly goes insane. He's 2 or 2.5 for 3 depending on how you count.
  - LightBug1 2y ago
    Started thinking that years ago ... and have always made the link, in my mind, between the Starship and the Spruce Goose ...
    - psunavy03 2y ago
      To be fair, Starship has gotten further than the Spruce Goose ever did.
      - LightBug1 2y ago
        I kind of agree - but relatively speaking they're at about the same place right now.
    - two_handfuls 2y ago
      Maybe robotaxis will be the Spruce Goose.
    - _Tev 2y ago
      Starlink (v2 sats in particular) alone justifies Starship. Include HLS and potential Mars stuff and the comparison does not make sense. Don't listen to people who hate on SpaceX because of Musk. If you want to hate on him pick any AI-related thing, much easier target.
sanderjd 2y ago
Yeah, of the full possibility space of mystifying decisions, I think this one might be the global maximum... It's such a "selling shovels to the miners" business line where they are (were?) positioned really well in. Maybe this isn't actually what's going on, but from an outsider's perspective, it really feels to me like watching a person's nervous breakdown play out, but at the scale of giant publicly traded companies.
tzs 2y ago
What does the Supercharger team actually do? To build and run a charger network you need people for at least these things: • To design the stations (including the charging equipment (hardware and software), landscaping, buildings) • To manufacture the charging equipment • To decide at a high level were to put stations, and at a lower level to find specific sites, buy or lease those sites, and go through whatever legal process is needed to be allowed to build there. • To deal with electric utilities to get power to the site. • To do the actual building at the site, including preparing the land, maybe paving, installing the chargers, hooking up to the incoming power, putting up signage, etc • To maintain it. It will need regular cleaning and trash pickup. Someone should be checking regularly for problems that won't be found by whatever remote monitoring and diagnostics they have. When a problem is found, manually or by there remote monitoring, someone has to go fix it. • To provide customer support. If you do all of them in house you need a large team. But a lot of them are reasonably done by hiring another company to do them in which case you might not need a large in house team. I'd guess that they do the first (design), part of the second (assemble the charging equipment from components they have custom built by other companies), the high level location planning. I'd guess that the lower level part of site placement is done by local firms familiar with the area that Tesla hires, that dealing with the electric company and the actual building is done by a local general contractor and whatever subcontractors that general contractor uses. I'd guess that the cleaning and on site checking for problems is handled by a local maintenance company. Fixing problems would either be a local company or someone Tesla sends depending on what it is that needs fixing. Customer support would likely be Tesla. If Tesla considers that their existing Supercharger station designs are good enough to continue using for a long time for new stations, then they might really only need to keep in house the high level decision of were to put them, charger repairs, customer support, and hiring the local companies that do the field work.
- cowmix 2y ago
  500+ people to even do the HIGH level bits of running a SC network isn't a lot. Everyone (even the most strident Tesla haters) agrees that SC is the one thing Tesla does the best, hands down. I own a model Y and tried to use only non-Tesla charging on a long distance trip a few months ago, it was a disaster. Telsa's charging network is a win on EVERY front: 1. Locations 2. Quantity of locations 3. Quality (high charging rates) 4. User experience / design of hardware - software 5. Realtime reporting and navigation 6. Uptime of network The SC network is why a lot people consider Tesla who otherwise it would be a big fat no.
wuj 2y ago
If I'm not mistaken, many companies do the product engineering in house and outsource the manufacturing/maintenance to contractors. Tesla's supercharger network is mature enough that it won't see much innovation moving forward, and that might've motivated them to remove the entire team.
m5l 2y ago
Could a plausible explanation be that with the spread of NACS, the supercharger network matters more to the overall industry and so Tesla can get away without footing the costs of managing it? Even if that makes some sense, it seems early to make that judgment call.
- ianburrell 2y ago
  In that case, they should have spun it out. I think Supercharger would be good if boring business by itself. That would also get rid of the conflict of having car company own biggest charging network.
demondemidi 2y ago
> Feels all like emotionally driven decisions... Yep. This is why a CEO actually matters. Musk is a great example of what happens when a CEO is bad. He's turning into John Scully for those of you that remember. Unfortunately he's no Steve Jobs, but the board definitely needs to find a CEO, stat or that ship's going down.

Havoc 2y ago

Must be bad layoff decision week. First googles python team now Tesla supercharger team

vardump 2y ago

Perhaps we don't know the whole picture. I doubt Tesla is going to abandon Superchargers anytime soon.

thejazzman 2y ago
Who exactly is going to pickup the work?
- deleted 2y ago
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- citizen_friend 2y ago
  Oh so you do know the full picture and organizational structure?
- steelframe 2y ago
  Electrify America! (Sorry, I'll show myself out the door.)
- marcusverus 2y ago
  Good question. The answer ain't 'nobody', is it? It's almost as though, perhaps, we don't know the whole picture.

peutetre 2y ago

> Musk said, in his typical bluster, that he wants Tesla to be “absolutely hard core” about headcount reduction, saying that executives whose subordinates “don’t obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” I'm not sure Musk passes that test.

GolfPopper 2y ago
He's not talking about executives, he's talking about "subordinates".

mint2 2y ago

“ continued layoffs have even worse optics, given Tesla’s move to ask shareholders for a $55 billion payout for its CEO just days after firing 14,000 people. That $55 billion could pay for 40 years worth of six-figure salaries for those employees.” Musk is detached from reality. He seems to think firing most of X is a resounding success and Tesla, a car manufacturing company, needs to do the same. Also that cost cutting and performance reviews only apply to others, just like in Twitter and elsewhere free speech means his speech not critics. I really hope he doesn’t wreck spaceX too.

enraged_camel 2y ago
>> I really hope he doesn’t wreck spaceX too. I think SpaceX is one disaster away from suffering the same fate, to be honest. Like, if the next Starship doesn't make it as far as the previous attempt (for example, if it blows up on the way up), Elon is going to come in like a wrecking ball. The pressure on the SpaceX team must be immense.
- thejazzman 2y ago
  Once he rage fires Shotwell.. and given how insane that would be only validates its likelihood at this point
- treme 2y ago
  you seem naive. SpaceX has made it to MI complex status, and US gov will easily bail them out should worst come.
  - funac 2y ago
    > SpaceX has made it to MI complex status, and US gov will easily bail them out should worst come. immaterial: "the worst" here is elon destroying the engineering culture & with it their ability to keep improving on what they've done so far. not going bankrupt (by way of a bailout or otherwise) is a necessary condition for avoiding the worst (boeing syndrome), but it's not sufficient fedgov can pour money into the military industrial complex, but it can't do a whole lot more, and that only goes so far

cs702 2y ago

WTF? This is utterly bananas. I don't get it. The long-term cost of treating longtime, loyal, talented employees like Rebecca Tinucci as... disposable could be very high. It could even threaten the company's survival. But... I'm going to give Musk the benefit of the doubt, because he has proven me -- and lots of people who are way smarter than me -- wrong, again and again, over the past two decades. He has a long track record of making bets that look crazy-stupid in the moment but turn out to be crazy-brilliant in hindsight. The jury is out.

dragontamer 2y ago
> He has a long track record of making bets that look crazy-stupid in the moment but turn out to be crazy-brilliant in hindsight. Like Cybertruck? Tesla Semi? Full self driving in 2017? Robotic snake to automatically plug into your car and charge it? Dojo? Hyperloop? Solar roofs? Battery Swap? Dogecoin? Tesla Roadster? Twitter?
- thejazzman 2y ago
  That snake was bad ass I heard Elon designed and built it himself in his garage They didn't commercialize it because no one else was capable of making one and it was too much work for one person to mass produce
  - potatochup 2y ago
    Definitely not true. Source: I worked at Tesla at the time of the Snake robot.
    - dragontamer 2y ago
      The above post looks like carefully constructed satire, mostly there to make fun of people who hero-worship Elon Musk into thinking that Elon Musk personally handled all tasks at Tesla like Tony Stark / Ironman.
      - 2y ago

54643dd 2y ago

[flagged]

mplewis 2y ago
You made a burner account and all you could come up with was this comment?

techdmn 2y ago

Hmm, time for the over under. Which happens first: Musk is replaced as CEO, or he drives Tesla into the ground? And in the latter case, how long do we think it will take?

sumeno 2y ago
That's not how an over-under works
- techdmn 2y ago
  Fair. How about: "How long Musk continues to be CEO of Tesla, whether because he is replaced or because Tesla goes out of business."

justin66 2y ago

I guess the way to keep your engineering job at Tesla is to perpetually work on something that isn't finished, like self driving.

Terr_ 2y ago
♫ "Next year, oh next year, you'll love it, just next year, it's only some months a-wayyyyy." ♫ (To the tune of "Tomorrow" from Annie.)

ra7 2y ago

In my opinion, this is all a massive gamble by Musk to pivot Tesla to an AI-first tech company. Except that Tesla cannot really do AI well and don't have the resources or talent the likes of Google, Meta, OpenAI, etc. does to do novel research and push AI forward. And he has to make this gamble because Tesla's fundamentals as a car company is going down the drain and its entire valuation hinges on the fact that they are not just a car company. That's why he's constantly announcing new products (robotaxis, humanoid robots) that are nowhere close to materializing, making visits to China to ink HD maps deal with Baidu for FSD and claiming to spend $10B on AI infrastructure this year. He seems to be in forever stock pump mode, so much so that Tesla's best product till date might just be its stock.

renegade-otter 2y ago
Except that AI has not shown itself to be useful, at least not considering the staggering costs, anyway. Tens of billions of dollars to... fix people's grammar and generate tons of SEO spam? What PROBLEM are they solving here?
- bunderbunder 2y ago
  I think the parent poster stated it pretty clearly: the problem they're trying to solve is how to keep the stock price floating at a multiple of what the business's actual fundamentals suggest it should be. The problem is, while that worked well for a good 10 or 20 years, it seems that people are now starting to catch on to the scheme. But I'm not sure that means that you can just stop doing it. As someone elsewhere in the thread pointed out, dragging things out as much as you can is probably preferable to a sudden and brutal value correction for just about everyone with actual skin in the game.
- 93po 2y ago
  FSD is currently using neural-network style AI, and it's frankly amazing to use and watch and is massively useful.
  - stetrain 2y ago

ethagknight 2y ago

Tesla is in a bit of a bind in that the model y is difficult to improve (beyond the upcoming highland refresh). Fundamentally, it does its job so well that all it needs are minor tweaks. Supercharging network is essentially complete from a fundamentals perspective, you can nearly go anywhere with a EV with a bit of planning. The market can fill in the gaps. The roadster and semi situations are headscratchers, but I guess Tesla doesn’t want to hassle with a “sports car” with the same performance as its biggest sedan. I don’t think the Semi really works purely from an energy density perspective. Diesel-electric hybrids make far more sense for big rigs for current battery tech. The Tesla semi is sorta stuck. The layoffs make sense in that light. They have implemented the step change in Ev Manufacturing, built the machine to build the machines, are very close with FSD, built the charging network… working to avoid innovators dilemma, perhaps? Treating employees poorly is no good.

xvector 2y ago
Advice for future Musk employees: Do a somewhat shitty job, otherwise you'll get fired as soon as you build a stable product.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  same could be said for home builders and heart surgeons. Do a shitty job or you wont be needed anymore.
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    Home-building companies and hospitals do need home builders and heart surgeons. Are they all doing shitty jobs?
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      And Tesla still has employees, but fewer than before. I was trying to highlight the idea that most workers dont have to rely on having a shitty work product to ensure their job security. This itself is a reaction to the idea that a job offer is a life long commitment akin to marriage. In a healthy labor market, employers would want to retain talent because it is profitable to do so. I don't employers retaining unproductive employees is a desirable state.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

xvector 2y ago

Musk's companies do great stuff but I wouldn't be caught dead working under him. An unwise decision in so many ways.

Tiktaalik 2y ago

Seems troubling for the recent vendors Ford and Rivian that just signed on to be users of the Supercharger network if the thing now has high odds of (figuratively) rusting away without support. I wonder if Tesla is in any breaches of contracts that they may have signed with these companies, and how much Ford/Rivian paid for acccess.

4b11b4 2y ago
I doubt it's going to rust away, they just don't need a large team anymore.

wnevets 2y ago

Why would an AI company need employees to build cars and its charging network? /s

tristanb 2y ago

I have a decent amount of Tesla shares, that I purchased around 2017. All I want is a shareholder vote to get rid of Elon. His time has passed.

cbeach 2y ago
So, a very smart CEO works for six years to turn a minor automotive startup into the world’s most valuable car company, enriching you while you sat on shares in the company. And despite this, you think he deserves his compensation (in the form of shares in the company) to be cancelled? Even though it was contractually promised, and agreed by shareholders? Bear in mind that the package is only worth a large amount because Tesla has grown so hugely under Musk’s leadership. I’m interested to know how many other HNers also hold this belief, or think this is a reasonable way to treat entrepreneurs in America?
- JojoFatsani 2y ago
  Not OP but as a very minor shareholder.. I think it’s reasonable not to allow a single employee to be compensated (55b$) more than all the EBITDA the company has ever made. I think it’s reasonable to question the decision making demonstrated by firing the most successful team at the company and put the major competitive advantage at risk. I think it’s reasonable to question the constant monkeying with product and design (Cybertruck, removal of loved features like LIDAR or physical wiper blade controls). I think it’s reasonable to question how the CEO has lost first mover advantage so badly by failing to improve products and introduce new models as the legacy competition and foreign companies quickly have caught up. I think it’s reasonable to want an engaged, full-time CEO who is not distracted by executive responsibilities at several other ventures, half of which are actively failing as well.
  - cbeach 2y ago
    When the deal was agreed, it wasn't worth anything close to $55bn. It's only worth that now due to the incredible rise in value of the stock under Musk. A deal is a deal. As a £six-figure shareholder I am voting for Musk to be paid what he is owed (in the June 13th meeting). And voting for Tesla to incorporate in a state where judges don't make arbitrary decisions on executive pay We don't know the full details of the Supercharger team's "firing" yet, so let's not speculate. Reuters speculated when they reported about the cancellation of the affordable Model 2, and they got that reporting horribly wrong (damaging the stock price with their error). As for Superchargers being a major competitive advantage, that's no longer the case, as the network is open to cars from other brands. Tesla hasn't lost its first mover advantage. Name another American or European carmaker that sells as many EVs as Tesla. BYD briefly caught up in terms of raw sales figures, but that trend quickly reversed when China's economic woes weighed on the company. As for "failing to improve products," the Model S has been improved in so many meaningful ways, it's practically a new car. The performance (0-60 in 1.99s) is absolutely mind-bending, and Tesla's innovations such as the carbon-wrapped motor are responsible for this. > I think it’s reasonable to want an engaged, full-time CEO who is not distracted by executive responsibilities at several other ventures, half of which are actively failing as well. Which ones are failing? SpaceX is untouchable. Neuralink successfully implanted a brain/computer interface in a paraplegic man. X.com delivers features at a greater rate than Twitter 1.0, at lower operational cost, and -more importantly- it is defending free speech. xAI just secured $6bn in funding, with its value soaring to $18bn. All of which was acheived by a man who is "distracted." And other companies that Musk co-founded (e.g. OpenAI, PayPal), seem to be ticking along nicely also.

rawgabbit 2y ago

Lay off 20% of the work force to juice the financials and then dump the stock?

babypuncher 2y ago

An old boss of mine tried to get me to come work for him at Tesla. This was early 2022. I told him this Musk fellow doesn't inspire much confidence in me with his increasingly bizarre antics. Seems like I dodged a bullet.

mandeepj 2y ago

Interesting read below! Seems plausible, not sure how true the story though. https://x.com/fomahun/status/1785333618157527081?s=46&t=LAqP7LYAXb_VWBxxkMgMyQ https://x.com/fomahun/status/1785333618157527081?s=46&t=LAqP...

resolutebat 2y ago
This is the stupidest theory ever. Supercharger expansion is not slow because of Tesla or any technical reason under their control, but because Supercharger stations require a) massive amounts of electricity and b) local government planning approvals, and the 2nd of those in particular only moves at the speed of government. There are sites in Australia that have been tied up for years by petty council politicking.

sp332 2y ago

I don’t know if "fired" means something different in Britain, but the article says they were let go or laid off.

rjsw 2y ago
What does it mean in American?
- sp332 2y ago
  Let go for cause. It has different severance and benefits status.
  - thejohnconway 2y ago
    "Let go" is a horrible euphemism, like the employee wants to go, but is being prevented from doing so. I'm setting you free employee! Enjoy your no job and no money! Reminds me of Bill Lumbergh in office space, "so if you could just go ahead and [thing Peter Gibbons really didn't want to do]".
- rcstank 2y ago
  Fired means the role will be backfilled, and the employee was let go for performance reasons or whatever else. Laid off means the role won’t be backfilled. It could also mean the role was renamed, and they wanted to let the employee go but it looks better for everyone to say it was a layoff. Let go (at least to me) could mean either.
  - wccrawford 2y ago
    I think Fired means it could be backfilled, but I've seen plenty of instances where the company decided to restructure or do things differently instead of hiring someone else. Just because they were fired for cause doesn't mean the company wants to keep that job around afterwards. That said, it is unusual not to say 'laid off' these days unless the person was fired for cause, but the recently media frenzy around the term might have them saying other things instead.

cmsj 2y ago

This must be one of those 4D chess things I hear about...

sp332 2y ago
Now that the charger standard is open, they don’t need to expand the network themselves.
- peutetre 2y ago
  The charger standard is CCS. It was always open. What's happening in North America is that everyone will use CCS with Tesla's plug on the end. It's CCS type 3. Older Teslas will need a retrofit to be able to talk CCS. Tesla chargers will still support Tesla's now dead protocol.
  - sp332 2y ago
    I think that's a weird way to look at it, but anyway, Tesla doesn't need to expand the network of Tesla-compatible chargers anymore.
    - peutetre 2y ago
      It's the factual way to look at it.
  - quonn 2y ago
    This seems to be wrong, CCS type 3 looks completely different: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_3_connector https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_3_connector
    - peutetre 2y ago
      That type 3 was obsoleted and was never used as part of CCS.
      - 2y ago

lpapez 2y ago

Masterful gambit sire.

throwaw12 2y ago

Elon is very interesting guy, on one side he complains about birth rate, on the other side impacts people's mind to not have a kid, because they're not safe in their workplace and expects they must dedicate large part of their lives to his companies

snapcaster 2y ago
Oh come on, i'm not a fan of elon musk but jeez
- throwaw12 2y ago
  I am a fan, that's why saying he is interesting. Tell me it's not true?
  - nindalf 2y ago
    It's curious that you remain a fan despite being able to see his hypocrisy. I wonder why you haven't made the logical leap that it isn't worth being a fan of a hypocrite like this.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    Your comment elevates him to godlike status… you expect him to be managing humanity’s birthrate with his corporate decisions? He’s just running a company here, and by all indications, he’s struggling at it. It would be a violation of his job responsibilities, and get him in trouble with shareholders if he was doing anything other than trying to make the company succeed. Moreover, this is the basic challenge of running a business: if you are you afraid to make hard decisions, the company will collapse and every employee will be out of a job.
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    You really think it's fair to make Elon Musk responsible for the global birthrate and population?
    - deleted 2y ago

feverzsj 2y ago

Tesla supercharger is fully compatible with BYD ev. Coincidence? I think not.

peutetre 2y ago
Tesla's chargers have charged all brands in Europe for a long time now. Here's one charging a BMW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ Another BMW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mox4tL3dR8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mox4tL3dR8o Here's one charging a 400 volt Kia: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s Here's one not doing a good job charging an 800 volt Kia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJ2KtzMeh8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJ2KtzMeh8 Tesla does need to do better on 800 volt charging. If Alpitronic, Kempower, ABB, EvBox, and friends can all do it then Tesla can do it too.
andix 2y ago
In Europe they are. All new chargers in Europe use the CCS2 standard, and teslas have a CCS2 socket. NACS is not suitable for Europe, because of three phase AC charging (which makes home charging much easier/faster than in the US). I think all of the V3/V4 superchargers are open to all cars, otherwise Tesla wouldn't get government funding for expanding the charging network (at least in the EU, maybe UK changed that after brexit). Interestingly it's still mostly teslas charging there, although superchargers are one of the cheapest options to charge.

moogly 2y ago

Next piece of news I'm expecting at this point is "Tesla stops Model Y production worldwide".

RaftPeople 2y ago
Musk: "We want our customers to be hard-core just like we are, so the Model Y will now be a home-assemble model."
- olyjohn 2y ago
  If you don't get it built using every spare waking hour of your life, Elon calls you up and starts yelling at you.

AbrahamParangi 2y ago

Kind of buried the lead when they wrote that regulators are pushing Tesla to effectively nationalize their charger network and they just coincidentally cut the entire team.

potatolicious 2y ago
> "But with regulators in both Europe and the US pushing the firm to open the Supercharger network to owners of other electric vehicles, it will offer less of an advantage in the future." Mandatory interop is not nationalization. Words have specific meanings. As far as I can tell there have been zero calls to nationalize the Supercharger network from anyone.
- AbrahamParangi 2y ago
  Nationalized in that the benefit is socialized and there is now little to no incentive for Tesla to improve their network as it doesn't advance their market position. I don't see how this is hard to understand.
tejohnso 2y ago
> "But with regulators in both Europe and the US pushing the firm to open the Supercharger network to owners of other electric vehicles, it will offer less of an advantage in the future." How hard can this be pushed? Tesla put in all the work, took all the risk, and now they can be forced to share it and give up one of their competitive advantages? Maybe in Europe, but it doesn't seem like a U.S. kind of move, where normally you put in the work and risk, you reap the rewards rather than being forced to hand over what you've earned to the competitors.
- kgermino 2y ago
  Your parent is either misinformed or misleading. At least in the US (not familiar with Europe) there haven’t even been mentions of nationalization. Beyond that, the “pressure” for interoperability has entirely been tied to federal funding. The feds have money available to build electric charging stations, but the catch is that it has to work with cars from other manufacturers. If you don’t take the money, you can do whatever you want

Dalewyn 2y ago

For those in the thread confused about Fired vs. Laid Off in the US: Being fired means your employer was unsatisfied with employing you, reasons can include insufficient performance, inappropriate conduct, breach of contract, and so on. Being laid off means your employer no longer needs or wants your manhours, with no negativity otherwise implied. Reasons can include corporate restructurings and so on.

paxys 2y ago
These definitions are manufactured by HR. Being fired means being fired. What reasons the company had for it are irrelevant. Most employment in the US is at will, so the company doesn't need to provide a reason for the firing. In fact they don't even need to have a reason. Plus most layoffs are also taking performance into account. If every department is tasked with cutting headcount by 10%, they aren't going to pull the numbers out of a hat. The lowest performers will be the ones shown the door.

sgnelson 2y ago

With all those people who have "range anxiety" and thus avoid buying EV's, this is going to do a good job of selling more Teslas...

alephnerd 2y ago
I've been in the market searching for a car for sometime, and I was about to go with a Tesla, but this layoff pushed me away from the brand. I don't care about Musk's politics (everyone has skeletons in their closet, so idgaf) but I don't have confidence as a customer anymore now that Tesla has truly become erratic recently. The only reason I even seriously considered a Tesla is the supercharger network. I don't want to have a Daewoo Motors 2.0 on my hands.
- boringg 2y ago
  I think you probably need to look closer at the their numbers if you are really trying to claim that it is unstable car company. This comment sounds to me like you are looking for a reason to not get a Tesla because you don't like Musk.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Larrikin 2y ago
    It's a valid reason to not give money to someone you dislike. Tesla is not owed his money because they were first movers in the serious EV market, especially as time goes on and more and more options exist.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Sure, as I read the parent post, they were just saying you don't have to dress it up and pretend it is a different reason.
      - 2y ago

mig39 2y ago

Somebody's gotta pay the twitter loan interest payments.

paxys 2y ago

It's hard to feel optimistic about Tesla these days. Musk is gutting the company while dangling bizarre and wildly unrealistic promises in front of shareholders (releasing Optimus robot, self driving taxis, licensing self driving tech, training AI models on all Tesla cars, launching unnamed cheaper product lines – all by the end of the year). This will get a short term stock price boost and probably get his $56 billion pay package approved, but when then? Who saves Tesla from reality after Musk gets his money and checks out?

Maxious 2y ago
> Musk made clear in a call with analysts earlier this month that he is focused on opportunities in artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous robotaxis. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musk-disbands-tesla-ev-charging-team-leaving-customers-dark-2024-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musk-d... Presumably that was before Tesla needed to recall all the cybertrucks for stuck acceleration. AI says blame the floormats
throw310822 2y ago
> Optimus robot, self driving taxis, licensing self driving tech, training AI models I think it might be worth saying that: 1) Tesla has already accomplished its stated mission of making EV cars mainstream. This was Musk's goal from the beginning, and (insofar it is true that he's interested in working on "world changing problems" and not in making money per se) the mission of Tesla as a driver of transformation is accomplished. 2) Musk might have decided since a while that Tesla has a desperate need to pivot, because being a mass producer of a mature technology in the West is not sustainable in the long run.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  > Musk might have decided since a while that Tesla has a desperate need to pivot, because being a mass producer of a mature technology in the West is not sustainable in the long run. I'm sorry just... what? Being in a position to sell products to a robust and demanding market is a bad thing? What in the Business Major brain are we saying here? And frankly calling their products "mature technology" feels like a stretch given Tesla is regularly stubbing it's toe on pretty benign design problems that numerous other automakers have had nailed down for decades.

rpmisms 2y ago

Theory floating around Tesla spaces right now is that they weren't executing well enough or fast enough, so Elon is going to start a new team from scratch. Given the remarkably slow rollout compared to most things Tesla does, wouldn't shock me at all. Elon generally does not fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy.

andix 2y ago
Especially in Europe there are many locations that don't make a lot of progress. Some locations are in construction for over a year now, others just got announced and never started. It's mostly a problem with getting permits and connections to the power grid, but still it's not a great performance. I don't know if they could do better.
paxys 2y ago
This phenomenon is well known in tech. "The product doesn't work as well as expected. We can painstakingly investigate all the different issues one by one, root cause them, and put in the effort to fix them. Or we could just throw out the whole codebase and start again from scratch. That's sure to be more effective right?" Spoiler – it isn't. Musk just threw out a thousand+ years of combined experience in the area, and the new team is going to come in and repeat years' worth of the same mistakes in order to realize why things are the way they are.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  People aren't code. Sometimes teams get a culture that you want to change and it's generally extremely difficult, if not impossible to change team cultures incrementally because a) they always hire people that have the same culture as them, b) they're used to the existing culture, and c) people hate being told they have to change. So I think it may not be as crazy as you make out. On the other hand were they really underperforming? Isn't Tesla's charging network still world leading?
  - paxys 2y ago
    If there is a bad culture then work to fix it. If there are underperforming employees then root them out. Like you said, it's not like 500 totally incompetent people built out the largest and most powerful EV charging infrastructure on the planet in a matter of a decade.

boringg 2y ago

Anyone have any information about the actual individual asset valuations for a Tesla Supercharger station? I have to imagine that without tax benefits accruing to Tesla these investments don't pencil out on financials but are a necessary investment for people to feel comfortable about buying an EV. So probably individual losses on their books that they no longer need to underwrite because the competition can start investing and operating them which expands the network for users.

pocketsand 2y ago

I understand the competitive advantage has changed with the NACS deal, but the last major Tesla brand advantage I as a lay-observer saw was their clearly superior charging network and connector. People seemed to unanimously agree their connector was better, that opening it up was good, and that Tesla charges are more reliable and more available than competitors'. Why you'd immolate that brand equity is beyond me.

foobarian 2y ago
My guess is, it was too expensive. That was a huge team with a huge capex outlay and for what? They still had to slash prices to keep moving inventory.
kjksf 2y ago
They are not destroying superchargers. They are still there and even if they don't add a single new one for the next 5 years, it'll still be the largest and the best supercharging network in US. No need to be so melodramatic about it. If you ask me it's a temporary cost cutting. When interest rates come down, car sales pick up and revenues pick up, they'll re-start the build out of the network.
- pocketsand 2y ago
  I did not say they're destroying the chargers. You are nevertheless underselling the potential implications IMO. These chargers are finicky. People's primary complaint with Electrify America is how hit or miss they are in actually working. People have the same complaint about Tesla, but to a lesser degree. That combined with Tesla's wider presence have made people correctly laud the quality of the market. Expansion aside, these chargers will need to be maintained, and sacking the entire division doesn't leave me hopeful they will be. Moreover, EVs are going to just keep growing in number. Every brand now has a pretty solid EV for sale. Keeping the same number of chargers isn't helping anyone. It's their right, but my main point is that this just further convinces me Tesla isn't serious about keeping up with EVs. Pumping money into a useless truck, chasing a dozen other fanciful projects, abandoning their world class charger network. The future is -- every other manufacturer -- it would seem.

linsomniac 2y ago

Musk has clarified: "Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785

greedo 2y ago
Why anyone gives credence to what Musk says is beyond me. The hype this guy has spewed the last decade is beyond credulous.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- linsomniac 2y ago
  Cruel, but fair. But, it is a part of the story...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

leesec 2y ago

Elon regularly fires teams that don't perform. He fired the management of Starlink in 2019 and the product was still a mass success. So much hatred and negativity for one of the most truly innovative companies of our time.

smith7018 2y ago
The Supercharger program is arguably Tesla's most valuable asset, though. Arguing that they're "under preforming" and therefore deserved a mass firing is unbelievably shortsighted. Without the Supercharger network (that was on its way to becoming a US monopoly), there isn't much differentiation between Tesla and other EVs beyond brand recognition and largely controversial design decisions.
- leesec 2y ago
  It's still an asset, and it's still becoming a monopoly. Nothing has really changed except the team
- nightshadetrie 2y ago
  He'll most likely re-hire the core engineers (maybe 1 per team) at higher salaries to maintain context. That's what he did at X

oxqbldpxo 2y ago

2018: My next car is a Tesla. 2024: There is no way I'd buy a Tesla. Cybertrucks are the 2024 version of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
Me in 2016: Elon Musk is real life Tony Stark! :-D 2019: Buys a Model 3 Performance I love this car, though I wish Elon Musk would stop over-promising on FSD. I hope one day to get a Roadster 2.0! 2021: Elon is becoming a bit of a nut job, but his large presence in the news is good for Tesla sales. 2024: The absolute best thing Tesla could possibly do for the survival of the brand is to get rid of Elon Musk. His hard right-wing shift has destroyed left-wing environmentalist desires to get a Tesla, and if Tesla dies, the entire market takes it as a signal that EVs are not viable in the market. His claims on FSD "coming soon" are no longer forgivable and are just outright lies. No longer interested in the Roadster 2.0, hoping someone else can make an EV convertible that'll do 0-60 in under 2.2s and have a $200K or less price tag.

Germanion 2y ago

Elon wasting too much time on Twitter. Prev I thought good leaders don't matter (and musk is still bat shit crazy) but plenty of times now I took care of stuff (a team, a product) and made it good. But keeping it good needs still attention or someone taking over. That Elon was/is hands on was.critical. With him spending time on Twitter too, stupidest thing he ever did.

ldbooth 2y ago

It seems they looked at the market, saw their 6% return on SC's and saw a lot of competition that would be drive down that low margin and be installing their NACS ports going forward anyway. If they can back away to to let 3rd party developers/funds build the low margin stuff, it could be a wise use of capital. However, this is the ChargePoint model having 3rd parties buy/build/own/operate the stations and although Tesla's DC/AC charger builds are better, they will be confronted with the same issues ChargePoint has where station uptime is much lower due under 3rd party ownership because Tesla does not directly own and monitor the stations and it's up to the owner to maintain. The owners are more lax and the ports experience more downtime, disrepair. Literally the opposite of increasing SC uptime that was Elon's justification tweet on this team layoff. Maybe they can find a solution to the problem (only selling to large orgs/projects like they do with Megapack) but the likely outcome is the network will grow slower with outside capital but the quality/uptime is lower than before. And non Tesla SC stations/networks will be integrated into the Tesla dash like everyone other OEM does.

pipes 2y ago

Part of the reason seems to EU saying that Tesla must let it's competitors use it's networks. Probably didn't occur to them that this might disincentivise Tesla from investing in it.

quantified 2y ago

> And while the last layoffs were distasteful enough, continued layoffs have even worse optics, given Tesla’s move to ask shareholders for a $55 billion payout for its CEO just days after firing 14,000 people. That $55 billion could pay for 40 years worth of six-figure salaries for those employees. Ok, I'm interested in the rebuttals from the "Elon knows better than you, as measured by his net worth" perspective. It might be really clever business, or it might be a spasm. Is this just an HR maneuver to weed out the less-than-fully-committed?

HlessClaudesman 2y ago

How much of Tesla's downfall can be attributed to Elon's decision to build a clusterfuck clown truck?

jdlyga 2y ago

Superchargers are the only good thing that Tesla has going. What a shame.

pellucide 2y ago

Everyone on HN were predicting death of X.com under similar layoff news. But it is still ticking. Seriously, whats different this time?

constantcrying 2y ago
Keeping a website afloat is far less capital intensive than running a car maker. If you are building cars, you have to have a continuous massive amount of investment into development. For running a social media website you just need competent staff and cover hardware costs. You can free-float X to a certain extent, just make sure neither users nor advertisers run away. If you are building cars and a model completely falls flat you are easily down billions of dollars.
smith7018 2y ago
I use twitter daily and the site is a shell of its former self. It's slow, prone to bugs, filled with bots, the amount of real users has cratered, user reports go nowhere, there's no support team, the ads are now bot accounts posting crap like "Today is a good day, be sure to make advantageous", there are no new features besides previously in-flight projects pre-Musk, they've actually removed a lot of features (like Circles, block lists, etc), and much more. He took an otherwise functioning social media service and forced it into maintenance mode. He also fired all of the people that keep the user base alive so now it's flooded with bots (which he presumably likes so he can boast about engagement being up). So yes it's still around but it's dying and the skeleton crew he has left can't do anything. In other words, he destroyed it.
pylua 2y ago
It will be interesting to see this play out as a public company as opposed to a private one.

Nevermark 2y ago

Elon Musk is woven into Tesla's brand. That strikes me as an opportunity that has become under leveraged. I conjecture that technology-giant Musk firing political-opinionator Musk would be a winning brand management pivot for all his concerns, not just Tesla. Investors might also appreciate the reduction in Musk's attention burn rate. If he announced it like that, in all good humor, and followed through, I would expect significant share price bumps. (I have belatedly become less of an advocate for Tesla, since Musk entered the arena for loud mouth battles over zero/negative-sum ideas. I also attribute part of my decision to pass on Cybertruck to that effect. Divisiveness does nothing for a high-visibility statement product for which "cool" and "I like Elon Musk" are inextricable selling points.)